A blog about lovely Waterlooville, a small, environmentally damaged town in Hampshire, UK. Waterlooville was founded after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, as troops from that conflict returned home and passed through Hampshire. Having grown from a small village to a suburban sprawl, Waterlooville faces serious environmental challenges today and in the future.

Friday, December 16

It's been a big worry ever since Trump 'won' the US Presidential election this year. He appears to be siding with the anti-knowledge mob and is heading for the censorship of science and knowledge.

Why is this so?

Well science is basically non-political, it produces knowledge that may or may not be positive and 'beneficial' to humanity, how it is used is up to us. It is just there and may influence political decisions in a positive or negative way.

This BBC report sums up the current views regarding Trumps decisions even before he has taken up the position of US President:

Trumps team asked for all the names of the Department of Energy scientists that had worked on Climate Change issues. Basically this is the equivalent of Hitlers party supporters denouncing un-German science and forcing the likes of Einstein to leave 1930s Germany. Is this an extreme view? Well you either believe in the freedom to do any science that may inform government and business decisions or you try and dictate what science can be done based on your ideological preference (censoring it).Witch hunting scientists for their work is very, very similar to what the Nazis did in the 1930s.Sorry if you disagree, but if you believe in democracy then you have to accept unwelcome scientific knowledge as well as the 'welcome' knowledge.

Anthony Scaramucci one of Trumps team recently made comments on CNN comparing the ancient idea of the flat Earth with Climate Change. There is a big difference between ancient 'science' and modern science. Those that believed in the flat Earth did not try and prove that the theory was correct and did not collect data to prove it was correct.Modern science relies on the scientific method which did not develop until the 17th century, by today's standards the flat Earth theory does not stand up to scrutiny. Scaramucci's effectively assumes and bets on the assumption that in the future science will disprove current climate science knowledge. No normal sane decision maker bases political and social decisions by betting on what science might come up with in 100 years. You can only take on board what is known now and assume it is correct because it's based on existing knowledge that is tested and well proven (Infra Red radiation, Green House Effect and basic physics etc) verified by observation (temperature measurments, witnesses like farmers and other ordinary people, melting ice records, various species struggling or doing well, sea level rise etc.).

As the Ex-NASA boss points out in the article both government and businesses depend on truthful and factual climate data. If it is altered or is no longer available, businesses will have a false picture of reality and such holes will be replaced lies, myths, rumour and hearsay. We would have gone back in time to a more primitive period. We would be living a lie.

On top of the above observations Trump has appointed Rick Perry and Scott Pruitt to positions where they are in charge of departments that they are critical of.

So far it looks like Trump will significant damage in order to achieve his 'dream'.
Then there is Putin and Trumps love in.

One has to hope that the scientists can save the climate data and keep doing good science in defiance of Trump diktats and censorship.

Wednesday, December 14

As far as music goes, Oscilloscope Music won't be to everyones taste, however it is fascinating if you understand how it is produced. The animations in the video below were not graphically produced by a skilled animator or by a computer programme interpreting the music.
These animations are produced by the music itself. The signals that produce the sounds are fed into the X and Y inputs of an oscilloscope, this engineering and science instrument then displays the signals which happen to create the animations. So basically the sounds are engineered and synchronised to produce the animations, they music and animations are effectively one and the same thing!